Month: October 2022

A Tussle with a Tassel

I had a dream in the opening creaks of dawn today that I was getting ready to graduate from high school again. In my dream, the colors of my cap and gown were white trimmed in gold. In my real-life graduation, the colors were green and gold… I think. I don’t really remember because it was eons ago. I had attended a Catholic high school my last three years because I had been a bad kid in regular school and kind of got kicked out. I guess it wasn’t because I was bad really, I was just maladjusted. I didn’t fit in. But truth be told, Catholic high school was rougher than regular high school. That’s just what I needed.

The point is, because it was a Catholic high school and a relatively small class of less than 100 people, we had our graduation ceremony at a godly chapel on the campus of one of the local colleges. It was some sort of long-standing tradition. I suppose I didn’t really care about that. I hated high school and was just so ready to get it over and done with.

Moving on, I guess it was only fitting that my final act as a high school student turned out to be an exercise in my own misplacement in the world. After I accepted my diploma and began to stroll across the chancel, I reached up and struggled to find the tassel that I was supposed to move from right to left. It never occurred to me that performing such a seemingly simple act would have turned out to be my penultimate high school kick in the crotch. I was mostly concerned with the damn cap completely falling off my head and then everyone would see my messed-up hair.

Like I said, I had reached up and I was feeling for it, but I just couldn’t find the damn thing. I could sense the breathlessness in the gathered crowd. I was immediately struck with panic and what I really wanted to do was just run, run, run and never return to society ever again. But that would have been impossible. Everyone was watching, everyone was waiting. And then, as I took nearly my last step at the come down point off of the chancel, I found that damn tassel and flipped it to the left. It had slipped to the very back of the cap somehow. I was relieved. The crowd was relieved. The saints and demons etched into the colorful stained glass of the chapel were relieved. The whole damn universe was relieved.

That was my graduation. While everyone else was happy, excited, and celebrating the coming joys of their surely bright futures as they gathered on the perfectly manicured lawn outside after it was all done, I had had a tussle with a tassel. That is my memory. That is the little burn scar from my 18th year of life that for some reason really sticks out to me. It shouldn’t though, because over the years I have collected many more missteps and scars – much thicker and deeper ones. Such is life, I suppose.

I would think that for many people, high school was the highlight of their lives. For many people, I believe, high school memories are pleasant ones filled with friends, good times, laughter, dances, football games, parties, trips, dating, etc… Not for me. I was never involved in anything because I just knew I would have made a fool of myself, and those bastards would have jumped on that opportunity and torn me to shreds. And you may think I’m a psycho, but I actually burned my high school yearbook in our downstairs fireplace at the brutal Colorado house in the foothills where I lived. I just kneeled before that hearth of red brick like a monk and watched it flame up, curl, and finally turn black and tumble to ash. I don’t know why I even had a yearbook. My parents must have gotten it for me because it surely wasn’t something I would have chosen to have on my own.

Anyways, enough of that. I think this post was supposed to be about a dream… Yes. The dream.

In the dream this morning, I was getting ready for my graduation, and I was terribly anxious because I just knew, knew, my cap was going to fall off and I’d be made fun of… Again. So, in this dream, I was madly scurrying about in some cabinets searching for hairpins. I needed hairpins because I wanted to have them with me in case I needed to pin my cap to my head to keep it from falling off – which is really stupid because I never had hair thick enough to pull something like that off.

I was searching and scrounging and scavenging for hairpins, and in the process, I was making a huge mess of everything because I was just tossing stuff everywhere, like in a cartoon. My mother was in the dream, and I recall she looked really worried about me as I was just flipping things about in search of hairpins. It was as if she already knew I was going to have a very rough life and there was nothing she could do about it. She knew she had bred a cuckoo. That’s the look she had. The dream ended when I finished shoving everything else back into the cabinet and it was such a disheveled mess in there and that bothered me and I hated leaving it like that, but I did. I just closed the cabinet and then I woke up.

Fast forward umpteen years and at this moment my beautiful wife is gathering the laundry and clanking dishes. I’m madly typing away at my desk. I just finished my coffee and Greek yogurt sprinkled with granola and soon I will down my daily dose of prescription medication and head off to the gym. I didn’t need high school for this. What a painful waste. I just needed a chance to be what I wanted to be. I never fit into that small rectangular box that I sternly looked out from in that burning yearbook. I never will properly fit – not like they want me to.

Aaron Echoes August
Refrigerated Dreams (Act 8)

There were two reasons why Adam Longo still went to school. The first and foremost being that he knew that’s where Veronica Genesis would be. Secondly, is because he still got hungry and needed food to fuel his ever-evolving young body as he made his way through whatever phantom dreamland had swallowed him up.

It was high noon and the cafeteria at Grainer Falls Junior High School smelled like a gruesome menagerie of what some would call food. He walked among the fray of jabbering, obnoxious, and constantly twitching fools — those animals in human skin and clothes, his schoolmates. He carried a blue plastic tray with two hands. It had divided compartments. One had a hamburger. Another had a small pile of crinkle-cut fries. Another had a red apple with a bruise. Another still had a small carton of chocolate milk. He moved slowly, his eyes darting from side to side as the crowd watched and taunted him. Why all this? he wondered to himself. Why is this place such an inhumane zoo? He just wanted to eat his lunch like everyone else. But then again, he could never be just like everyone else. That had been his ultimate struggle for what seems to be going on… Forever.

“Hey dipshit!” someone yelled, and then Adam was hit in the side of the face with a warm, buttered dinner roll. It bounced off him like a ball and the entire place roared with laughter. He wiped away the oily butter that stained his face and just kept on moving, his eyes now focused on what was in front of him. Veronica was sitting at a long table near the back with a bunch of other girls and they were chittering away like maniacal young birds on a wire.

When she looked up to see what all the commotion was about, she saw him coming toward her like some artificially sweetened, tortured monster, and when she saw what all the others were doing to him, how they were teasing him, abusing him in that horrible socially acceptable school way, her young heart ached. She stood up and yelled out to him. “Hey Adam! Come sit over here!”

He tasted her voice as it bulldozed its way through everything else and came across the air to him. He started moving faster toward his place of acceptance. But he didn’t notice that Rude Rudy had purposely stuck his big foot out into the walkway and Adam tripped and fell forward and his lunch tray spilled all over the floor along with himself. It was typical school bully hijinks and again the lunchroom filled with taunting laughter.

“Woops!” Rude Rusty said to him as Adam got to his knees. “Looks like the poor baby hasn’t learned how to walk yet,” he teased. Adam turned to look up at him and he felt as if he could have spat a plume of scorching fire right then and there to burn his stupid freckled face off.

But that’s when Veronica came over and she stood up for him while he was down. “Leave him alone!” she snapped at Rudy. She went to help Adam back up to his feet. When he was standing again, their eyes locked but just a moment and then Adam looked around the room and he saw that nearly everyone was pointing and laughing and calling him names and more food was being hurled in his direction and that’s when the sounds suddenly became muffled, and time seemed to slow. He felt the thud of a bruised heart against the walls of his chest and in his now clogged up head. He caught a glimpse of some teachers pouring in and trying to calm the madness. Then he ran. He ran as fast as he could, and he burst through the opened doorways of the lunchroom and out into a glossy hallway where he almost slipped and fell. He regained his traction and made his escape to the sunlight.

“You asshole!” Veronica screamed at Rude Rudy, and then she took off after Adam.

“That’s right,” Rudy yelled back as she went. “Go be with your pussy new boyfriend!” He looked around at all his grinning admirers now gently slapping on him with opened palms and congratulating him for being such an amazing jerk, and Rudy soaked it in, and he smiled and laughed with them and then encouraged them to be even more vicious than he was. “If you ever see that damn kid again… Make sure to let him know he’s not welcome here!”

“We will!” the crowd of lambs yelled out in unison as small fists shot up in the air.

That’s when Rudy climbed on top of one of the long cafeteria tables and they all cheered when he raised his fat arms dotted with orange speckles and rallied them. “New kid sucks!” he yelled out as he pumped his fists. “New kid sucks! New kid sucks!”

And that’s when they picked it up and they followed along with his chant and the entire place was taken over by a melodic roar of “New kid sucks! New kid sucks! New kid sucks!”

They started pounding on the tables in rhythm with their chant — Boom, boom, boom… “New kid sucks!” Boom, boom, boom… “New kid sucks!”

Rude Rudy looked down upon his faithful throng and he reveled in the admiration, and he reveled in the power he had, and he reveled in the fact that he could somehow control the masses if he was just ugly and hateful enough.

Then there came the annoying shrill of numerous gym class whistles and a couple of large hands reached up through the frenzied mist and pulled Rudy down from his lunchroom pedestal and dragged him off to somewhere else to have his behavior formally corrected.

MORE TO FOLLOW

By
Aaron Echoes August

You can read the previous part of this story HERE.
Refrigerated Dreams (Act 7)

Veronica’s first instinct was to run downstairs and tell her brute of a father that there was a strange boy outside her window. But when she stopped and then realized the strange boy was Adam Longo, she went to the window and stared out at him through the relative safety of the glass. He looked cold, hungry, and like he was hurting somehow. She unlocked the window and forced it up. A cool wind rolled in and touched her face. “What are you doing here?” she asked him.

He looked at her for a spare moment, turned his head toward the dips and rolls of the town, some dark, some lit up, and then back to her. He admired her face. She had a girl face, a caring face, but he was worried that would change. “I didn’t know where else to go,” he said in a soft almost strangled voice.

Veronica gave him a serious look, and then her eyes went beyond him and into the pinkish-green and gray darkness. “You’re not going to hurt me, are you?” she wanted to know.

His eyes widened and he shook his head. “No. I would never… Not you.”

“It’s cold outside. You should come in.”

“I’m okay.”

“Are you just going to stay outside my window all night? That would be weird.”

Adam Longo was hurt by the remark. He was sick of people calling him weird. “Maybe I should just go.” He started to turn away from her.

“No,” she quickly said. “Just come inside before someone sees you or hears you and calls the coppers.”

She stepped back. “Come on,” she motioned. “I’m not going to bite you,” and she thought about what she had just said. “No one’s going to hurt you, but you must be quiet… But then again, you’re always quiet.”

“Why is that always a thing with people,” Adam said as he now stood before her in her room that smelled like a mall clothing store and perfume. He was barely an inch taller than her. He brushed the dark hair away from his eyes and blinked.

“What do you mean?” the girl asked.

“Why do people always have to point out when someone is a quiet person. No one ever says, you’re so loud. Why is it such a negative thing? Maybe I like to be quiet. Maybe I’m just thinking about things. Maybe I like to be alone with my thoughts.”

Veronica Genesis was somewhat stunned, and she almost laughed. “I don’t think I have ever heard you say so many words at one time.”

“See. Why is that so horrible?”

“I didn’t say it was horrible… It’s just uncharacteristic for you, that’s all I meant.” She plopped down on the edge of her flowery bed.

He looked at her and realized he may have said too much. But he had never said too much before. Ever. Not in his entire 13, nearly 14, years of life. It was an awkward situation for him. Maybe all that extra talking, and to a girl, nonetheless, had something to do with the new way he was. He was confused and disoriented. He sat down on the bed beside her. Their knees touched. He would have never allowed that before… Before what?

She wanted to bring the obvious up, but she wasn’t sure how. After a short struggle with her own thoughts, Veronica just let the words spill from her mouth. “I saw what you did to Andy… Why did you do that?”

He didn’t look at her when he answered. “I thought he was going to hurt you,” he said. “I wanted to protect you.”

“Why? You barely know who I am? You’ve never really talked to me unless you had to. And then you go kill a kid because of me?”

“I didn’t mean to. Something inside me just got away… Like a runaway truck on the downside of a mountain pass.” He turned to look at her, his expression loaded with fear and worry. “Are you going to tell anyone? Have you already?”

She shook her head. “No. Not about that. But I did tell Rudy that you were alive. I thought it was only fair since he was the one who had the bright idea of locking you in that refrigerator.”

Adam Longo released a sigh. “I hate that kid… And I hate that you’re going with him.”

“I’m not anymore.”

He turned to look at her. His otherworldly eyes bounced across her face. His hollow heart jumped. “You’re not?”

“No. How could I after what he did to you. It’s awful… Why did they close you in that horrible old refrigerator?”

He looked down at his dirty shoes. “Because I’m the new kid, I guess. Not that that’s any reason to try and kill someone. I don’t get it. I never did anything to Rudy or his stupid friends. And now my life has totally changed.”

She reached over and took hold of his hand and he felt like chilled electricity. “You’re cold,” she said sympathetically.

And then there came a light knocking on the door and her father’s sharp voice penetrated through it. “Veronica? Are you still up? Come on, it’s getting late. Lights out.”

She looked up at the ceiling in frustration. “Yes, dad!” She got up off the bed and touched the light switch by the door. The room was dark except a greenish-blue glow from her laptop screen and the damp pink shimmer of night coming in through the window, the glossy moon chipping in with a glow of its own. She peered at him through the low-level light. “I’m going to crawl into bed now. You can get in the bed too if you want to warm up, but you have to stay over on your side. Okay?”

He looked at her without answering. He didn’t move when she pulled back the mass of blankets and crawled down in under them. She propped herself up on an elbow and stared back at him. “Well?”

“Well, what?” Adam muttered.

“Are you afraid of girls? Are you afraid of me?”

“No. I’m not afraid of girls. I’m not afraid of anything anymore.”

“You probably want to kiss me.”

He sloppily protested. “No, I don’t.”

She suddenly changed the subject. “Are you afraid of going back home?” Veronica wanted to know.

He hesitated. “No. They don’t care about me.”

“They won’t be wondering what the hell happened to you?”

“Are you kidding? My mom takes off for days at a time and no one knows where she goes or who’s she with. Not even my dad knows, or cares, because he’s too busy messing around, too. I don’t know why they ever even got together.” His frustration forcefully bloomed, and it scared her. “I don’t know why they even bothered keeping me… I wish we never moved to this stupid town.” He stood up, turned around and looked down at her in the bed and even though it was mostly dark, he could clearly see her. His breathing picked up pace and his nerves ignited deep within him, set to blast off with little to no control. That was something new for him, too.

Veronica’s heart thumped a little faster and she was suddenly fearful of him. “What are you going to do?”

He put his arms out in front of himself, closed his eyes, and he was suddenly thrust backward, like a bird of prey in reverse flight, and his body was silently sucked out her bedroom window. Veronica jumped out from under the covers and ran to the sill and peered out. He had settled on a thick branch in an old tree in the yard. He was perched directly across from her, several feet away, and he looked into the girl with a ghostly glow in his pupils as she looked out at him in shock and wonder.

“Go to sleep,” he whispered across the wind. “I’ll watch over you.”

MORE TO FOLLOW

By
Aaron Echoes August

You can read the previous part of this story HERE.
Crock Potting in Serial Killer Forest (The First of Unknown)

I was never really the terrible one. I only wanted to be loved, but that never came. Instead, I only got a death wish. But that was then, and this is now, and now I’m flying a bush plane is Alaska.

I’ve got a little place made of wood and river stones that sits near the water on the other end of town from where I work. The road to it is dirt and gravel, often wet and muddy. I have a wood pile outside to feed into my wood-burning stove. It’s all a bit rustic and rough but I don’t mind. I’m surrounded by trees and tundra and a lake and big, beautiful emptiness that’s lonely yet fulfilling at the same time. I had a wife once, but she was only bitter trouble, and we went our separate ways.

My office is in a little unimpressive building near the shore. The place is called Good to Go Air Transport Company and it’s on a big plot of land with a small rustic airstrip. We can also fit a plane to land on water. That’s the best. Nothing like aiming for that crystal wet plate shimmering below, and then that gentle splash comes and the rolling that isn’t really rolling but instead gliding, like blades on ice. The passengers always sigh with relief when I yell out “Nailed it!”

I bring a hot Thermos of coffee with me every morning because I don’t like the office coffee. Some days there are donuts, some days there are kolaches, some days there are cinnamon rolls, some days there is nothing. That all depends on my boss, Kliff. Yes, Kliff with a K. We think he used to spell it Cliff, with a C. But then rumor has it he was once involved with the Klu Klux Klan, the KKK, and so he liked the letter K and changed the spelling of his name. I guess Kliff got caught up in some really bad stuff and high-tailed it to Alaska a bunch of years ago and started this flying company. I don’t know how much of that KKK stuff is true, but we like to think that way. It’s funny to us. When I say we and us, I’m referring to the people I work with.

There’s an older guy named Guster. He’s a mechanic and smokes like a chimney. He wears brown Carhartt coveralls all the time. He’s got unruly gray hair and a big gray beard, and a big bouncy belly and he looks like a washed-up Santa Claus. Kliff scolds him out loud if he takes more than one donut or one cinnamon roll in the morning. “Save some for the rest of us, fat ass!” he yells out from where he watches us through a big window in his corner office, his sea captain salty eyes burrowing like a cat getting under a spotted blanket. Guster just laughs and yells back, “Let me live my life for once!” Then he mumbles some other things under his breath and goes out to work on the planes in the small hangar we have. He’s not much for people, and I respect that.

There’s a younger guy named John and he’s from Minnesota or maybe North Dakota. He mostly talks about baseball, which is boring to me, but otherwise he’s all right. His emotions are flat, and he’s got a weird sense of humor and I think he’s an only child and was probably dropped on his head. He had me come over to his apartment one night because him and some friends were going to play Scrabble. That was a wild time. I was drinking while we were all playing and then I knocked the vodka bottle over on accident and it spilled on the game board. He didn’t even really get pissed about it, but he probably should have.

There’s also the obligatory office lady named Karol. That’s right, another god damn K name. I don’t know what it is with people and the letter K up here. I guess I shouldn’t talk though because my name is Ceith, that’s right, Keith with a C.

Ceith Cringle. What a dumb world it is sometimes, and so backward, too.

Anyways, you know the Karol type. She’s the momma bird and keeps things humming along because she’s the sharpest one out of all of us. She’s always bringing in casseroles and crock potted stuff for us to eat because she thinks just because we aren’t hooked up with a decent gal we’re going to starve or something. Bless her momma bird ways, but I’m pretty good at taking care of myself. I even know how to operate a crock pot. What a mystery that is. Karol’s husband recently died but she never acts shook up about it because I think he used to slam her around a good bit. She seems happier now. She whistles while she works, like a dwarf in a magical kingdom.

Like I said, most of the time Kliff is in a decent mood and brings in all those goodies which I appreciate because I’m really into sweets. When he isn’t in a good mood, he only brings darkness, and lately things haven’t been very bright. He’s having woman trouble, money trouble, emotional trouble. I’m not sure if he wants to go back to the KKK or what but he’s been real topsy-turvy lately. Those are the times I want to be up in the air, cutting through the blue sheets and the white pillows, and looking down at the blankets of dark green and the golden-gray glass lakes.

Like I mentioned, what we do is fly people all over Alaska. With a lot of places up here, it’s the only way to get in and out. Much of our business comes from hunters, campers, serious hikers, isolation enthusiasts, escapists, cult leaders, rich assholes, shamans, adventurous honeymooners… Serial killers.

The day Jeffrey Dahmer was on board my plane was a weird one for sure. The planes aren’t big and usually only hold a handful of people, if that. Dahmer was by himself, because you know, he was pretty much a loner. He made me uncomfortable because he just kind of sat there behind me and didn’t say much at first. He was wearing a bulky sage-green parka with the hood up over his head. His golden-brown eyes were magnified by his big glasses perched against his unruly face.

“So,” he began, and he had to lean forward and talk loud because of the engine noise. “Have you been watching any of that new mini-series about me?”

“The one on Netflix?”

“Yeah. It’s real popular.”

“I’m about halfway through,” I told him.

“Oh, yeah? What do you think about it so far?”

“To be honest with you… It’s all pretty messed up. Seriously messed up.”

“Hey. What can I say. I’m a messed-up guy… What’s your favorite part so far?”

“Hold on, Jeff. We might want to let the people who are reading this know that we’re going to talk about the show… We don’t want to spoil it for them if they’re really into it.”

“What should I say?”

“Tell them that if they don’t want to know what happens in the show, they should stop reading.”

That’s when Dahmer looked straight into the camera and in his usual dead-pan manner said, “Hey. If you don’t want to know what happens in the new Netflix series about me and my life, stop reading.” He paused. “Is that good enough?”

“I think so.”

“Okay… So, what is your favorite part so far?” Dahmer was again eager to know.

I knew my answer right away. “I like the part where you go off on your grandma when she threw out your mannequin. Damn man. Who the hell yells at their grandmother that way? That was brutal.”

He thought for a moment about what I said. “Oh, yeah. I guess I was pretty rough on her. But I did apologize later. Remember? When we were having our TV dinners on our TV trays in front of the TV while we were watching TV. Don’t forget about that. I always felt bad about the stuff I did, but always after. I never thought about stuff like consequences or other people or whatever before I did all those horrible things. I couldn’t control myself.”

“I had no idea about all the heinous things you did. I always just considered you as that guy from Milwaukee who killed a bunch of people. This show has really enlightened me. Why did you do all those horrible things?”

He got quiet, turned his head, and looked out the small window beside him. “Alaska sure is a beautiful place,” he said. “Maybe all this fresh air and nature would make me a better person. I think I need to be a better person.”

“Are you thinking of moving to Alaska?”

He kind of laughed which was weird because he was such a dark and brooding individual. “No. I’m more of a city boy you could say. And I don’t think they would go for all my gay stuff up here. Some people just can’t handle gay stuff.”

“Right… So, where I’m taking you is really isolated,” I reminded him. “You sure you’re going to be okay for a whole week? Doesn’t look like you brought much gear.”

Dahmer patted the suitcase that sat beside him. He had refused to stow it properly and I didn’t want to argue with him. “Oh, I’ll be just fine. I have plenty to eat… And there’s always wild animals. I have a thing about animals, you know. And there’s a lot of wild animals in Alaska, right?”

“There sure are,” I answered him. “And it gets cold at night. I mean, cold as hell.”

“Body heat.”

“What?”

Dahmer smiled strangely. “Two entangled human bodies can generate enough heat to keep them alive through a long, cold night.”

“But you’ll be all alone,” I said.

He turned his head to look at the suitcase beside him. “Oh, yeah. I guess I forgot about that… Why don’t you come with?”

By
Aaron Echoes August

DO YOU WANT MORE OF THIS STORY? VOTE BELOW.
Refrigerated Dreams (Act 6)

Adam Longo was still and quiet atop his perch at the abandoned Grainer Falls shoe factory. He was looking down upon the people surrounding the body. Some were squatted and taking photos. Others were scribbling notes and shaking their heads. Others still were talking on cell phones and with each other — dark whispers of a tragedy unfolding like layers of Christmas wrapping paper.

One of the investigators suddenly looked up when a pigeon fluttered, and Adam Longo closed his eyes to hide. “Maybe he fell, and then the animals got to him,” the man said to his peers without looking at them, his eyes still fixed upon the rusted rafters. “You know how these stupid kids are always screwing around in here. Damn fools think they’re going to live forever and do crazy things… Like climbing around where they shouldn’t.”

A woman kneeling beside the body of Andy Bliss turned her head to look up at him. She wanted to call him an idiot, but she didn’t. “There’s no sign of fall trauma. Not at all,” she said. “You should rethink that theory… Detective.”

He shrugged off her comment for the moment. “I merely suggested a possibility, Ms. Lassiter. That’s what we like to call investigation where I come from.”

The woman laughed to herself. “I’ll be sure to never go there then.”

He quickly turned his attention from what was above him to the woman examining the dead boy. “Are you criticizing my work?”

She looked up at him confidently. “Yes.”

“Well stop,” the detective said. “We got a dead kid here. This isn’t the time to be stepping on people’s toes. Got it?”

“Whatever you say… Detective.”

Veronica Genesis clutched her schoolbooks as she walked down the sidewalk on a warm afternoon. She stopped in front of Rude Rudy’s run-down house and looked at it. His bike was toppled in the front yard, so she knew he was home. She steadied herself, walked up to the door, and knocked.

A few moments later, Rude Rudy appeared in the open doorway. He glared at her. “What the hell do you want?” His orange hair was a bushy mess. His shirt was stained with food or milk.

She was angry at herself for ever becoming involved with such a loser who didn’t realize he was a loser at all. They’re the worst kind of loser, she thought to herself. “I don’t want to go steady anymore,” Veronica bluntly told him.

He scoffed at her, but inside he was hurt. “Good,” he stammered. “I don’t want to go steady with you either. You’re not any fun at all. You’re just way to into yourself… Besides, there are tons of babes I could replace you with.” He slammed the door in her face.

She knocked again and he yanked the door open. “What!?” In some small way Rudy hoped she had reconsidered.

“I thought you might want to know that Adam Longo is alive… Sort of.”

“What do you mean sort of?” Rudy wondered.

“He showed up at school, but he was different. He was acting weird.”

Rudy laughed. “There’s nothing different about that. That kid is weird.”

“I’m serious,” Veronica stressed. “If I were you, I’d be concerned.”

Rudy shook his head at her. “He’s the one who should be concerned if he comes around here.” He poked his head out and looked up and down the street to steady his sudden creeping doubts. “Now get lost,” he said, and he slammed the door in her face again. Veronica flipped him off from the other side.

Adam Longo waited until they removed the body of Andy Bliss and secured the scene. When they were finally all gone, he leapt from the beam and floated down to the floor of the factory. It was dark. But somehow, he could see through it. He walked to and pushed on the heavy metal door that led to outside. The sudden rush of the fresher air felt good to him, even though he wasn’t sure if he was breathing air like he used to. He looked up at the sparkling stars and the 100-watt lightbulb moon that hung there like a bleached Chinese buffet plate. He turned back once to look at the brooding factory crawling upon the lightweight veil of darkness like untamed vines before he started walking toward the scattered glow of Grainer Falls.

When he emerged from the suburban brush, he knew just where to go, even though he wasn’t sure how he knew. So many things were different now and becoming more different every day and night. He roamed the streets like it was Halloween. He touched his cold face and thought it must be a mask.

He kept to the shadows, softly crawling through the dark spaces between the streetlamps and their fizzing pink light, like a raspberry in champagne. He caught a smell in the air and suddenly turned his head toward a white house with a high window that glowed golden yellow. He moved closer, undid the gate, and moved up the walk. At first, he stood on the porch at the front door. He could hear a man and woman talking inside. He lifted his fist, but just before he was about to strike the door with his white knuckles, he quickly withdrew it. He came off the porch, stepped back out into the yard, and looked up at the high window again. He saw a shadow move against a wall.

“Veronica,” he mumbled to himself in a strange voice that was not the voice he remembered having. He mumbled again. “Veronica.” He floated up and brought himself down on a lower pitch of shingled roof just below the window. He carefully peered in through the glass. She was standing in front of a full-length mirror and looking herself over. She placed her hands on her chest and shook her head in disappointment with her body. Veronica moved away from the mirror and sat down at a desk and opened a laptop computer. Her face was quickly bathed in the light of burning technological fuel. A moment later, her young heart jumped, and her head quickly snapped around when there came a light knocking on her bedroom window.

MORE TO FOLLOW

By
Aaron Echoes August

You can read the previous part of this story HERE.